


whose idea was this?

by SmittyJaws



Series: R2J AU [6]
Category: Led Zeppelin, Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Character, Bisexual Male Character, Christmas Fluff, Deaf Character, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24342199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmittyJaws/pseuds/SmittyJaws
Summary: They're decorating gingerbread men with their nephew. How is Roger somehow the most responsible one out of the three of them?
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Original Female Character(s), Robert Plant/Original Female Character(s), Robert Plant/Roger Taylor/Original Female Character(s), Roger Taylor (Queen)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: R2J AU [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757326
Kudos: 5





	whose idea was this?

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in my R2J AU, which is Roger Taylor x Robert Plant x Jay Marin (my ace!OFC). Originally written in December for my Advent fic calendar on Tumblr.
> 
> Mentions of Jimmy Page x Blanche Avia (a friend's OC), and featuring their kid from this AU; a deaf boy named Carson (another OC).

Roger’s still a bit nervous around Carson. Even though Blanche and Jimmy have assured him he’s a natural with taking care of their son when he and his partners invariably get asked to babysit for them, he can’t help but feel as though he could be doing better.

Robert is bright and exuberant, happy to give their nephew rides on his back and play make-believe with foam swords and the like. Jay is patient and careful, treating every concern as though it’s a very serious matter (which, he supposes, they are to a five year old) and letting Carson rest a hand on her throat to feel her speak as she reads out bedtime stories he can’t hear with his ears.

But Roger? Roger can’t help but feel slightly awkward by comparison. Jay knows how to handle kids; she’s the oldest of all her siblings. Robert’s just naturally good with them; cheery and personable. Roger was never a babysitter type growing up, aside from basics to look after Clare. He likes children, make no mistake there — he’s just uneasy when it comes to caring for them and occupying their time for longer periods. But his nephew seems to like him at least, so there’s that.

He’s recently gotten into a bit of a phase where he refuses to wear his hearing aids, preferring to hear through the vibrations he feels and communicate through BSL. It’s made things a little tricky when it comes to watching him, as none of the three of them are fluent in BSL, but they try their best anyway.

Like today; they’ve been given Carson to watch while Blanche and Jimmy do some last-minute shopping for Christmas presents. They knew this was coming, though, and have thus prepared: Jay’s somehow found some place that sells giant gingerbread figure cookies (the cookies are literally a foot and a half tall) and she and Robert have gone and stocked up on icing and every conceivable kind of candy you could put on top of them. “We need to have choices,” Jay had argued. “It’s not a proper gingerbread man unless you’re loading them up with the most ridiculous combinations of sweets.”

He’d looked at Robert, hoping to find a voice of reason, but their boyfriend had just nodded sagely, agreeing with Jay (before contemplating if they should have gotten _more_ ). God, he’s dating a pair of children.

Clearly he’s the most reasonable adult here, and that says a lot coming from a man closing in on 30 and wearing the tackiest Christmas jumper Robert had been able to find him. ( _“Brings out your eyes!” Robert had teased, and Roger knows **damn well** it doesn’t, but he knows his boyfriend has a soft spot for seeing the three of them dressed up in coordinated outfits, so he’d agreed to it regardless._)

He’d been hesitant about the amount of things they’d bought before, but now, watching Carson’s eyes light up as he sees all the bowls of candy Jay has laid out while he and Robert had chatted with Blanche at the door, he thinks she may have been onto something.

Carson’s quickly climbing onto a chair, silently counting the types of candies she’s laid on the table, eyes widening the higher he counts. He turns to Roger with a hopeful expression, and Roger can’t help but grin. He may worry about how he’s able to look after a child (or worse, that he’ll repeat his father’s mistakes), but he thinks this might be fun.

—

“I’m regretting my decision,” Roger groans, attempting for the fifth time to try and make his candies sit the way he wants them to on his figure’s hand, and having them fall off onto the table yet again. “Whose idea was this?”

“Oh shush, you,” Jay chides, examining her gingerbread figure as though she’s calculating something very precise, before nodding decisively and adding some sprinkles to the head in lieu of hair. “It was either this or we go do the shopping for Blanche and Jimmy, and I didn’t fancy going to a crowded store the day before Christmas. We’ve got the better end of the deal here.”

“Yeah, but. The _mess_ ,” Roger complains weakly, gesturing at the spilled icing and candies on the table, and Carson gleefully loading up his figure with as much as he thinks he can get away with when no one is looking. “This is going to be a bitch to clean.”

“You never used to be this picky,” Robert observes around a mouthful of his own figure ( _how_ is he already eating his?). “Besides, it’s nothing that a good sweep and a mop won’t fix. Let him have his fun.” He grins over at Carson, pushing a candy bowl closer to where their nephew is reaching for it.

“But what about _my_ fun?” Roger gripes, thinking of the bottle of rum he has stashed away for spiked eggnog and lamenting the fact that he can’t drink til Carson is either in bed or picked up. “I can’t very well break out the booze until he goes to bed.”

“Well, I suppose—”

“ _Booze_!” Carson exclaims, making them all jump. He’s picked up this habit lately of bursting out with singular words he picks out from conversations as he reads peoples’ lips, and it frightens nearly everyone around him as he never speaks out loud otherwise. (Roger thinks he does it to fuck with them.)

“Jesus. Carson, you can’t do that,” he wheezes, catching his breath and shaking his head as he attempts to speak slowly enough that the child will understand. “No shouting.”

For a moment, he thinks he’s gotten through to the boy. That maybe things will be alright and he can finish his godforsaken messy gingerbread figure.

No such luck.

“Booze! Booze booze booze booze booze,” Carson chants, volume wavering as he giggles and continues to place more candy on top of his figure. By now the cookie is practically buried underneath a mound of sweets, and Roger can already hear the lecture from Blanche in his mind.

Jay pats him on the back sympathetically, even as she signals to Robert to start clearing away the remaining candy and icing from the table. “You tried, Rog. Besides, I hardly think they’ll fault you for one word fixation.”

Beside them, Carson whimpers out a pathetic “nooooo” as Robert clears away the candy bowls, trying to grab what little he can before they’re out of reach. He piles them on top of the tray holding his gingerbread figure, and eyes Jay and Roger as if daring them to remove them.

Roger sighs, and Jay tries to hide her laughter behind a hand, before cajoling Carson to come wash his hands and promising no one will touch his misshapen pile of gingerbread and sweets (after all, it can’t really be called a person anymore). How she manages to get through to him, Roger has no clue, but he wishes he had that skill.

Though, he’s not entirely hopeless — he somehow manages to get Carson’s pile of sweets loaded up into a travel container, and when Blanche and Jimmy come to collect their son, he’s the model of a good uncle, assuring them that Carson was well-behaved and showing them his and Jay’s cookies (and Robert’s half-eaten one) before handing off the travel container to Carson, who insists on carrying it himself as he waves goodbye to his aunt and uncles from the car as they drive away.

And if he skirts around the truth and doesn’t divulge what exactly Carson has done to his own cookie… Blanche and Jimmy will find out soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also @smittyjaws on Tumblr!


End file.
